


Third Wheel

by ritsuko



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Casual Sex, Drinking, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pon Farr, sad feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ritsuko/pseuds/ritsuko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One doesn't talk about relationships with Jim Kirk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Wheel

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Third Wheel 电灯胆](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418230) by [noreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noreen/pseuds/noreen)



One didn't ever talk about relationships with James Tiberius Kirk. It just wasn't done. As long as McCoy had known the other man, it had been a string of one night stands and flirty flings that never lasted more than a few weeks, and certainly not longer than a few hours once the other party uttered the magic words 'I love you'. 

Bones could psychoanalyze the situation into the ground, but it all came back to one thing- the blonde was afraid of loving too much and getting left in the dust. The doctor could relate. After several years of a failed marriage and a child he never saw save through awkward comm calls, Leonard hadn't cared if he would ever find someone to be in a committed relationship with. He had bourbon, and that was good enough for him.

Until he'd stumbled on that Starfleet shuttle and told a blonde kid who looked all beat to shit that he might vomit on him. That was the day that his heart, so full of pain and betrayal from Joss, from his own inadequacies as a husband and a father, had started to mend. Jim had talked to him the entire shuttle ride, keeping his mind off of his aviophobia, stuck next to his side during orientation, and deciding that they were fast friends despite an eleven year age difference, signed them up for dorm life together.

McCoy had never had a dorm experience before. All of his previous schooling in Atlanta, he had lived in a cramped apartment in the suburbs, commuting back and forth to college, and then Joss had gotten pregnant and he'd been at school all day and working all night just so they could get by. Hardly the raucous party life that others got to have. While others were going to wild parties he was changing diapers. Not that he didn't love Joanna, it just wasn't anything like dorm life with Jim.

There were women in his room nearly every night, and it was a wonder he could get any studying done with the blonde banging away in his bunk. Bones couldn't complain, sometimes the many brought more girls than he could handle on his own.

Sometimes, when he thought the doctor was really drunk, he'd slip into McCoy's bed and latch onto him like he was the only safe thing in the world. . . and sometimes he's latch onto other parts. With his hands, his mouth, and lower. McCoy had never thought he might be gay. He still didn't.

But the hell if he wouldn't pass up pussy for James Tiberius Kirk.

Their three whirlwind years of academy passed in a blur, and it seemed like things would always stay the same, even when Jim became the Captain of the Enterprise. The man still knew how to party, how to entice the ladies. 

How to wheedle his way into the doctor's bed and his heart.

Even so, he could see the undeniable connection that Jim had with Spock. It was magnetic, you could feel it in the air, like the two just pulled to each other. Like planets. The Earth rotating around the sun. Because Jim was the sun. The bright light in all of their lives, pulling everyone within range to orbit around him.

Until Khan happened. 

Bones had never felt old, not until he had seen his best friend in a body bag. Those few minutes when he had thought the blonde dead, and then two weeks of not knowing if the man would live or be a vegetable for the rest of his life had shaved years off the doctor's life, and the only thing that had kept him from drinking his pain away was the thought that Jim might come out of it and need him. Every day he checked his vitals, changed the sheets, shaved the younger man. But there was no response.

So he'd waited. Watched. Stroked the side of the man's face and remembered the good times and the bad, the fun, the fights, the harebrained schemes, the times in bed and in the shower and on the table and in alleys and in the turbo lift. . . 

Those two agonizing weeks were shared only in a companionable silence with the pointy eared hobgoblin; a truce of sorts called just waiting for Jim to come out of his coma, in hopes that those blue eyes would blink open and those lips would smile in some cheeky grin and the brat would just say, "Miss me?"

Some days, McCoy felt like there was no hope. But then, when he would busy himself with something else and he would watch Spock out of the corner of his eye, reading reports to the comatose man, patting his covers down. . . even once he saw the Vulcan tenderly smooth the hair away from his brow.

When Jim had woken, both men were waiting for him. He had been happy to see both, but even then, Bones could see something in Jim's eyes, in the way that he stared at the Vulcan, the yearning in his eyes. Spock acted the same as he normally did, neutral and impassive. In the next year, Jim healed, and the Enterprise was refitted. Bones spent as much of his time with Jim as possible, at least, the time that wasn't dominated by the captain and the first officer spending their time together.

Now when Bones and Jim had sex, Leonard was soft and thorough and attentive. He poured every bit of love that he had into the act. Jim always seemed satiated afterwards, nuzzling into the doctor's side. He always seemed happy, but then he also seemed happy when they went out to bars and picked up chicks on the side. Although, Leonard had started to taper off of that. It seemed that he was becoming far more satisfied in just being with the blonde.

But one didn't tell that to Jim. The other man was invested in his ways, and the older man was too afraid to change a thing between them. Besides, what they had worked for them. Casual sex and ribbing camaraderie were the norm for the two.

The Vulcan's Pon Farr came out of left field for everyone. It had been kept a hush hush matter, only the captain and himself were told anything about it. McCoy had read a superstition in some book long ago about Vulcans turning into animals and having to mate or die, but passed it off as no more than ridiculous rumors. It seemed that the rumors were true, but Spock continued to be cryptic about what to do about fixing it. He would only tell the captain haltingly, and even so, Jim would tell him only the bare essentials.

And it was bare. They were over a month away from New Vulcan at top speed, and there were no other Vulcans on the ship. From what Jim was saying, if he didn't have sex, Spock would die.

Whereas Bones didn't wish any ill on the first officer, he certainly didn't like the thought of his Captain offering himself up for this ritualistic, animal rage/sex thing that Jim had already agreed to. McCoy didn't know how the man had talked Spock into taking him as his sexual partner, but he had. 

Bones had done everything he could to ensure Jim's comfort, from setting up food and water within easy access to making sure that there was enough lube. He had hugged Jim tightly, worry etching his face that the younger man just laughed off.

"Everything will be fine, Bones, just you wait and see." Jim smiled, blue eyes shining, and kissed him on the tip of his nose. The doctor had grumbled, and then worried as the other man disappeared into the room that Spock was waiting for him in. He then went to med bay to wait.

And wait.

He didn't know when he had opened the bottle of bourbon. Or how Joss' wedding band had made it into his hand. But the alcohol burned with a sweet heat down his throat as he palmed the ring- a simple gold band with a small diamond inset. All he could afford at the time, but that simple circle had carried his hopes and dreams until she had thrown it at him, demanding a divorce. At the time, he had promised himself that he would never allow himself to be trapped by a ring or love or any other bullshit ever again. He traced the contours of it, thinking about his new feelings, and wondered if he could ever be with someone like Jim as more than just fuck buddies.

Hours passed. A day. Then finally, thankfully, his comm went off, Jim's sleepy voice telling him it was over. He'd sprung up, sprinting down the hall faster than he thought he ever could have, med kit in hand. Bones had opened the captains quarters to be greeted with the musk of sex and the room in shambles. The man had blanched, there was probably no sterile surface in the whole area. 

The blonde had smiled sleepily from the bed, and Leonard could hear shower noises coming from the bathroom. Quickly, the doctor came to his side to take vitals, but the younger man chuckled. "Mmmfine Bones. Just a little tired." Jim murmured, eyelids drooping. But Leonard could tell right then and there, that something, something was very different. 

In the next few weeks, the Captain and First Officer became inseparable. It seemed that there wasn't a time that the two weren't together. All McCoy knew was that he had a sickening feeling in his gut, that whatever had changed was permanent.

When they had stopped on a Federation outpost planet the landing party had gotten to wander through one of the night markets, a joint setup of the Federation locals and inhabitants of the planet. Leonard wandered the stalls, looking through the odds and ends, maybe to find something to send back to Georgia for Joanna, when he had seen it.

It was a simple silver band, a men's cut, but filled with a star amethyst setting that was truly breathtaking. The doctor must have stared at it for ten minutes before the creature running the booth started to tell him the price. It was way too much, and the older man said so, but then the other creature had decided that the time for haggling had begun.

Something in the gem made Bones think of Kirk, and before he knew it, he had purchased it and beamed back aboard the Enterprise. It felt silly in his hand, but solid and resolute, as if one could encompass all of their feelings in something so simple as a ring. 

He made his way down the hall to the captains quarters and stopped shy when he rounded the corner to see the Vulcan holding Jim, lips against his, both men entwined in the hall, where anyone might be able to see them. Bones is shocked by the display, fully well knowing exactly what restraint Spock is abandoning to show such passion, such emotion in public.

How much the two of them must mean to each other.

Leonard quickly turns and goes back to his office. Sits in his chair. Pours himself a glass of bourbon, and then another.

One didn't ever talk about relationships with James Kirk. 

Yet somehow, the captain was now in one.

And Leonard again was not.

The bottle of bourbon was almost empty by the time Doctor McCoy left his office, but not before a silver ring joined a golden one in the far back corner of his desk drawer.


End file.
